Early voting in the 2022 midterm elections has begun in many states, and the inflation, economy and recession are top concerns for most voters, polls show. Democratic political consultant by James Carville The 1992 presidential campaign quip, “It’s the economy, stupid,” has been used a lot lately. If that’s true, it’s strange that health care has barely been mentioned as a campaign issue, even though it makes up 20% of WE economy. WE health care is a complex patchwork of public and private entities and programs, resulting in the most expensive per capita health care in the world. However, the health of the inhabitants of this country is on average worse than in other rich countries. A major driver of this disparity is the hugely profitable private health insurance industry that has inserted itself between patient and doctor. This flawed system consumes hundreds of billions of dollars a year and should be at the center of every election debate. One solution to this uniquely American problem would be the adoption of single-payer health care, or “Medicare for All,” eliminating private insurers altogether.
In a 2019 academic paper titled “It’s Still The Prices, Stupid: Why The WE spends so much on health care”, Professor Johns Hopkins Gerard Anderson and his colleagues explain:WE health expenditure per capita was $9892 in 2016. The WE the level of expenditure was 25% higher than that of Swiss ($7919) 108% higher than neighbors Canada ($4753).” Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a primary care physician and co-founder of Physicians for a National health planwho advocates a WE single-payer system. She appeared on Democracy Now! news time in November 2020explaining: “What we really need is to provide good insurance for everyone. We call it single payer or Medicare for All. It’s a type of system that the rest of the developed world has, like CanadaAs Scotland. You take out insurance the day you are born and keep it for the rest of your life. It’s not free; you pay for it through your taxes. But it’s a much more efficient system, because you don’t have all that complexity and administrative hassle that eats up a huge amount of WE health expenditure, probably more than a third. So by simplifying health care, moving it from a business to a public service, you save a lot of money. This allows you to cover everyone and also remove copayments and deductibles, which have been a major issue in the ACA [Affordable Care Act].”
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed huge gaps, flaws and inequities in our healthcare system. Widespread access to publicly funded vaccines here has dramatically altered the course of the pandemic, but COVID-19 continues to cause deaths and hospitalizations and stress our health care delivery system, especially workers. frontline healthcare. The Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention reports that an average of 323 people die every day from COVID in the WE This mostly preventable death toll is expected to worsen this winter as people move indoors and new omicron variants emerge.
This week, the Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra extended the COVID-19 public health emergency for another three months. This provides a significant array of taxpayer-funded supports, like free COVID vaccines and test kits. Perhaps most importantly, the emergency declaration expands access to Medicaid and CHIP coverage (Children’s Health Insurance Program). When the public health emergency ends, HHS estimates that up to 15 million people will lose their health insurance.
Medicare for All is largely absent from media coverage. Could it be the flow of money from the media, the constant barrage of pharmaceutical ads and insurance companies? Nevertheless, the single payer is championed by many progressive candidates. representing cori bushDemocratic congressman from from missouri 1st Congressional Districtis running for re-election as she completes her first term. cori bush is the first Afro-American female representative Missouri in Congress. The once homeless single mother is also a nurse. In her newly published memoir, ‘The Forerunner’, she writes, “As someone who has been uninsured or underinsured for most of my adult life, I know what it’s like to be burdened with thousands of dollars in medical debt and having to seek routine medical care in an emergency room rather than a primary care physician. And as a nurse, I’ve seen too many patients forgo mental health services or have to ration their insulin because they can’t afford the cost of It’s also why I fight for insurance -disease for all, including easy access to comprehensive mental health services and affordable prescription drugs, because health care is a human right and must be guaranteed for all.
The utter greed of private health insurers and pharmaceutical companies is a major factor of inequality in our society. Medicare for All is a long overdue prescription for our struggling healthcare system.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!”, a daily international hour of TV/radio news broadcast on over 1,400 stations.
